* There is not a shred of e\idence to show that this clause is not genuine in Hos ?fl. It is difficult to see wh.v, if the idea 'had its roots in Isaiah's time' and not in that out of which Ezk 34^ ZT--^- 45** 9 and Jer 309 arose (Harper, ad loc), we should follow Wellhausen in rejecting the clause. Nowack rejects the entire verse.
172
MESSIAH
MESSIAH
powers of violence and injustice are turned into submission to a Divine authority. In the last He is again the King who shall reign in righteousness, ' a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. '
All these passages, as well as Is 22-4, are regarded b}- Duhm as Isaianic. On the other hand, Cheyne, Hackniann, and Marti hold that they are post-exilio,* but on what the present writer considers to be insufficient grounds. The subject is discussed by Cheyne in his Introd. to Isaiah, pp. 44 ff., 57 ff., and 173- 176; also by Hackmann, Vie ZtikunftserwarUmg des Jcsaia, pp. 126-156," and by Marti in his Commentary on the above pass- ages ; cf. also his Gesch. der Isr. Religion*, p. 191 footn., 255 ff. On the other side, see the Commentaries of Duhm and Dillmann- Kittel (1898) on these passages, and the Century Bible, Com. on ' Isaiah' by the present writer. Kautzsch, in his elaborate art. ' Religion of Israel ' in Hastings' DB (Extra Vol. p. 696»), admits the reasonableness of the view here advocated.
After the gleams of hope awakened by Hezekiah and the deliverance of Jerusalem, and after the glowing anticipations of an ideal Messianic King clothed with Divine powers, to which Isaiah in the early years of the 7th cent, gave expression, there followed a time of reaction when these high hopes suffered temporary eclipse. Men's hearts became sick of waiting. The long reign of Manasseh, fol- lowed by the brief reign of Anion, was a period of religious as well as political decline. On the other hand, the reign of Josiah reawakened the hopes of the faithful adherents of Jahweh, and it is sig- nificant that Messianic expectation revives in the oracles of Jeremiah. In 235-8 (cf. 30«) he foretells the coming days when a righteous branch or shoot shall be raised unto David, who shall reign pru- dently and execute judgment and justice. In his days Judali shall be saved and Israel dwell secure, anil the name by which he shall be called is ' Jahweh is our righteousness ' This fragment probably l)elongs to the earlier utterances of Jere- miah, and upon it Zechariah in the opening years of tlie post-exilic period bases his well-known jirophecies (3^ 6'^), in which Joshua and his com- rades are addressed as tokens of the coming of Jahweh's servant ' the branch ' (2?). In 6'^ it is made clear that Zerubbabel of the seed of David is meant, who is destined to complete the building of the Temple, t With the passage in Jer 22,^-^ cf. also 309 3315 as well as Ezk 21^2 3423-31 37^''. In Jeremiah less stress is laid on the personal and material features, more emphasis placed on the ethical. Also it appears from several passages that Jeremiah thought ratlier of a succession of rulers of Davidic descent th.an of a single ruler. But in determining this question the utmost critical caution is required. Thus 33^^"^* is re- garded by most critics as a later addition to the oracles of Jeremiah (see, e.g., Giesebreclit's Com., and Cornill in SBOT). Certainly after the time of Jeremiah the personal features in Messianic pro- phecy became fainter. ' There shall not be cut off from David one that sits upon the throne of the house of Israel ' (Jer 33^^), points to a succession of rulers at a time when the hopes of Israel still clung to the 'sure mercies of David.' But this utter- ance, as we have already seen, belongs to a later time than that of Jeremiah. Zephaniah and Oba- diali make no reference to the Messianic King. When we consider their historic environment, this is not surprising. P'or royalty in Judah was rapidly
* Recently Prof. R. H. Kennett has discussed Is 9I-V in .JThSt (April 1906), and would assign it to the Maccab«an period. The epithets are referred to Simon the Maccabee.
t Duhm deals very arbitrarily with these passages. Jer 235-8 was not the genume utterance of Jeremiah, but a post-exilic addition. Zee 38 &'^ are badly corrupted, and later editors have sought to eliminate the name of Zerubbabel from the original oracle, because Zechariah's prophecies with respect to him were not fulfilled.
Probably Mic 51 8, like Jer 235-8, may be assigned to the earlier years of the reign of Josiah, when "the religious and political outlook of Judah appeared more hopeful, and the overthrow of Assyria seemed as probable as it did to Isaiah after B.C. 701 (Is 93- 4 [Heb.]). We may assign Nab 2—319 to the same period.
declining in power and prestige. The last kings of Judah became mere puppets in the hands of foreign princes, who pulled the strings from the banks of the Nile or of the Euphrates. Under these circumstances the ideal of a Davidic ruler ceased to appeal as powerfully as it did a century earlier, and ultimately gave place to another. It is mar- vellous that it continued to survive after the rude shocks of a hundreil years.